AUDIO: Former Rep. Stokes headed up a JFK investigation

posted by Tom Moore, Newsradio WTAM 1100
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3 years ago

(Cleveland) -- In the late 1970s, then-Rep. Louis Stokes of Cleveland chaired an investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald likely did not act alone, and that the president's murder was likely the result of a conspiracy.

The Cleveland Democrat was chairman of the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Stokes tells WTAM 1100 the committee was formed in 1976, originally to look into the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and that the committee then given the directive to look into the Kennedy assassination.

Stokes knew that the Warren Commission had done its own report, concluding that Oswald was the lone gunman, but his committee was determined to see if there were other facts that could be determined. According to Stokes, his committee obtained some evidence that wasn't available to the Warren Commission, some of which he says was withheld by the FBI and CIA. One piece of evidence that was important to Stokes' committee was a dictaphone recording that indicated that shots came from multiple directions, including the grassy knoll near where the president's motorcade traveled.

It was never determined who the possible second gunman was, and Stokes says the committee concluded that it was a bullet from Oswald's rifle that took the President's life.

As to which report the public believes most, Stokes says back in 1976, 80% of the public said in a national poll that there was likely a conspiracy involved in Kennedy's death, and he says that perception hasn't changed much since then.